Laced with Magic Virtual Book Tour '09

Laced with Magic ...by Barbara Bretton

It'll cast a spell over you...

Laced with Magic...

"Knit shop owner and sorcerer's daughter Chloe Hobbs felt the Fates finally got it right when she met Luke MacKenzie. And no one could have convinced her otherwise—including the trolls, selkies, or spirits who also call Sugar Maple, Vermont, home. But then out of nowhere Luke's ex-wife suddenly shows up, claiming to see the spirit of their daughter, Steffie—a daughter Chloe knows nothing about.

Steffie's spirit is being held hostage by a certain Fae leader. And if Chloe weaves a spell to free her spirit, her nemesis will also be free—free to destroy her yarn shop and all of Sugar Maple. But if she doesn't, Steffie won't be the only one spending eternity in hell. Chloe'll be joining her, cursed with a broken heart."

About The Author...

Barbara Bretton is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of more than 40 books. Her most recent title, Laced With Magic, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. She currently has over ten million copies in print around the world and have been translated into twelve languages in over twenty countries. Her awards include both Reviewer's Choice and Career Achievement Awards from Romantic Times

Barbara loves to spend as much time as possible in Maine with her husband, walking the rocky beaches and dreaming up plots for upcoming books.

You can visit Barbara’s website at www.barbarabretton.com, and you can read the first chapter of Laced with Magic HERE!

What did I think about Laced with Magic? Laced with Magic put a spell on me! How could you not love a story with a shapeshifting canary who morphs into a human at the drop of a sneeze?! And what a beautiful cover too! Barbara Bretton creates a wonderful story, where spirits & magic, werewolves and vampires are believably normal. The characters create a wonderful backdrop to the story of Chloe Hobbs, a sorcerer's daughter, who's half sorcerer, half human, loves knitting and who must carry on the family tradition in order to protect the town of Sugar Maple, Vermont... a female descendent!

Sugar Maple provided a safe haven for these hunted creatures. The people of Sugar Maple opened their homes to these magical 'people' while other towns hunted them down, burned them at the stake etc. Chloe's ancestor Aerynn showed her gratitude to the town by putting a protective charm to keep the villagers safe as long as a female descendent walked the earth. That was 300 years ago, and Chloe is the last in line now, with no husband, no child, and only a touch of magic in her half human supermodel body! When Luke came into the picture there was hope & sparks, until Luke's ex-wife Karen enters the picture too...

The story is pure fun! A kind of Chic-lit with a twist of paranormal. Barbara Bretton has a wry sense of humor that she imparts to Chloe and her friends! The story is fast paced and will grab you! You will laugh at some of Chloe's klutzy attempts at magic as she tries to fulfill her destiny and save the day. The romance sizzles a bit, but it's really the story of Chloe & Luke saving the town from what appears to be sure doom from a banished fae that will keep you turning the pages, along with finding out the choice Chloe makes involving the spirit of Steffie, Lukes daughter, and what her fate will be. The story is told by alternating chapters by Chloe, Luke and Karen the ex-wife. The story written this way keeps the story fresh as you are seeing how the story plays out by the different perspectives.

This is the 2nd book in the series, but don't let that discourage you because the author catches you up quickly right at the start so you feel right at home in the story. The first book in the series Casting Spells is sitting on my nightstand now waiting to be read. I enjoyed Laced with Magic so much I wanted more! And I get the distinct feeling that there will be a 3rd book in the series because there's a cliff hanger at the end of book 2!!

If all that is not enough to convince you to read Laced with Magic, if you're a knitter the knitting in the story should! Plenty of fun knitting references thru-out the book AND knitting tips, websites and knitting patterns in the back of book too!

Thanks to Dorothy of Pump Up Your Book Promotion for sharing this wonderful book with me! And for inviting Chick with Books to be part of the Tour! Thanks Dorothy!

Sunday Salon... Books with Buzz, a Reading Challenge, and a Book Download Freebie!

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

So the past week has been a great one for reading... I finished Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford! What a wonderful story! A childhood romance, a story that demonstrates the horrors of a time in history with internment camps, and the story of family. I'll be posting my review this week... This week has also been a great one for finding some new books to put in the TBR pile...

This week I received a copy of Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange. Vampires are all the rage these days and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice now has it's own! The book starts where Pride & Prejudice leaves off- the morning of the wedding of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Written in the same manner as the era it represents, it has gotten great buzz from Austen fans as the prepublication has hit the road! Mr. Darcy's aloofness is finally explained as he tries to keep his secret - he's a vampyre! The cover is perfect too! And I can't wait to read this! If you are a Austen fan and love a good vampire, Mr. Darcy, Vampyre will be on the shelves this tuesday Aug.11th! You can read more about the book at the blog Mr. Darcy Vampyre!

Another book with a lot of great buzz is The Sister by Poppy Adams! The story of two sisters who reunite after being estranged for 50 years! "Virginia is the sensible older sister who stayed, carrying on the family tradition of lepidopterology (the study of butterflies), while the reckless and free-spirited Vivien left to lead a cosmopolitan life in London. The story, told from Virginia’s eerily limited perspective, involves their parents’ descent into sadistic and capricious behavior, an accident in Vivien’s youth that left her unable to have children, and a plan that she had for her husband to impregnate Virginia instead. Adams creates an engrossing atmosphere of gothic mystery"... I picked this book up this week and can't wait to crack it open! I had heard some "If you Like The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield you'll like The Sister." And if you haven't read The Thirteenth Tale, it is a good story, with a gothic air of mystery in a run-down house, with dark secrets & lies, and sisters...

Also this week I picked up a couple of books by japanese authors. One of which was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, who is a critically acclaimed author of japanese literature. His work tends to mix the mundane things of everyday life with the bizarre. His writing is described as being poetic and his stories never boring. And so, I picked up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle... "Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician."

Picking up the book by Murakami was perfect timing because as I was reading Bird Book Dog a blog by my friend Harvee Lau, I saw she joined a reading challenge! The Japanese Literature Challenge! There are many "reading challenges" on the blogs. It's a fun way to try reading something new, nudge you into reading something on your TBR pile, and a great way to meet other people who love to read! The Japanese Literature Challenge is organized by Bellezza at her blog Dolce Bellezza . Anyone can sign up for the challenge, which is to read one book of your chosing of a Japanese author. She has reading suggestions too! I'll be posting about the challenge this week on the blog. In the meantime, you can check out Docle Bellezza and Bird Book Dog by clicking on their names, I've linked it to their blogs.

And a quick note here for my Kindle readers! And anyone who loves a free book! Simon & Schuster is offering a free download of Uglies by Scott Westerfeld until Sept.5th. It's a YA book that I've been wanting to read for a while. Uglies is the first in the trilogy. It's about this future world where at the age of 16 you must get an operation to become "beautiful". The Uglies are the pre-sixteen girls who are tend to play tricks and get into mischief as they wait their turn. But of course not everyone wants to go thru with this procedure and there is a rumored rebel settlement and there is a reason behind the required transformations too... Lots of great buzz and thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free download. And Thanks to Debbie of Debbie's World of Books for sharing the information about the download on her blog! The free download is in celebration of Scott's new book Leviathon, which is the start of a new series for him. You can check out his blog HERE! And click on "free download" above to get your PDF of Uglies. I already put this on my Kindle DX without a problem this time!

Happy Reading... Suzanne

A Bookish Ben & Jerry Flavor Movement!

A Library Themed Ben & Jerry's Flavor Movement!

What's one of the best treats in the summer? Ice Cream of course! As you're on vacation, walking along the boardwalk, out in your yard and hear the familiar jingle of an ice cream truck somewhere near, ice cream is BIG in the summer. What's your favorite flavor? Being a bookish person, would you like to try a bookish flavor? Say Rocky Read? I recently read in The New Yorker online magazine about a Facebook group called "People for a library-themed Ben & Jerry's flavor!". By July 21st the group had 4000 members! Here's the blurb from their Facebook page:

The Logic Behind This:

(1) Libraries are awesome;

(2) Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream is tasty;

therefore:

(3) A library-themed Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream would be tasty awesome.

Some of the great suggestions are:

Gooey Decimal System: Dark fudge alphabet letters with caramel swirls in hazelnut ice cream.

Sh-sh-sh-Sherbert!: Key Lime or chocolate/vanilla combination

Rocky Read: Vanilla with chocolate covered nuts, chocolate chunks and raisins.

The New Yorker also got in on the fun suggesting some other tasty flavors:

Chick Lit: Fat-free Peach Mango swirl with pieces of Chicklet chewing gum.

Over-Goo Fudge: Chocolate with marshmallow and fudge.

What do you think?! What bookish flavors can you come up with? Share your suggestions here!

*P.S. If you want to make a suggestion to Ben & Jerry's here's the LINK to the Suggest-A-Flavor page!

Happy Reading...(and eating!)

Suzanne

Amazing Private Libraries...

3600 Square Feet of Book Storage Envy...

We've discussed book storage here before... but look at this man's shelves! Wow! This is the library of Priceline.com's founder Jay Walker. Beautiful Etched glass, special lighting and look at those beautiful book shelves!

Jay Walker's New England house was designed specifically for his massive collection of books and other wonders (including original Sputnik 1 satellite! mounted from the ceiling)... " To create the space, which was constructed in 2002, Walker and architect Mark Finlay first built a 7-foot-long model. Then they used miniature cameras to help visualize what it would be like to move around inside. In a conscious nod to M. C. Escher (whose graphics are echoed in the wood tiling), the labyrinthine platforms seem to float in space, an illusion amplified by the glass-paneled bridges connecting the platforms"

To see more amazing photos of Jay Walker's library, follow this link to Wired, where you can learn more about what's in the library too! P.S. this was the first time the press was allowed inside his library, usually reserved by invitation only!

Giveaway: Soul Survivor by Bruce & Andrea Leininger

Soul Survivor

The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot

The Giveaway has ended! Winners have been notified by email, so check your email to see if you won! Thanks to everyone who joined in on the fun and entered the giveaway! The winners will be announced here when I hear back from everyone!

This is the story of James Leininger, who-- a little more than two weeks after his second birthday-- began having blood-curdling nightmares that just would not stop. When James began screaming out recurring phrases like, "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" the Leiningers finally admitted that they truly had to take notice.

When details of planes and war tragedies no two-year-old boy could know continued-- even in stark daylight-- Bruce and Andrea Leininger began to realize that this was an incredible situation. SOUL SURVIVOR is the story of how the Leiningers pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that he was reliving the past life of World War II fighter pilot James Huston. As Bruce Leininger struggled to understand what was happening to his son, he also uncovered details of James Huston's life-- and death-- as a pilot that will fascinate military buffs everywhere.

In SOUL SURVIVOR, readers are taken for a gripping ride as the Leiningers' belief system is shaken to the core, and both of these families come to know a little boy who, against all odds and even in the face of true skeptics, harbors the soul of this man who died long ago.

Soul Survivor is written with such honesty to the Leiningers conflicting feelings that no matter what you feel about the subject matter, reincarnation or past lives, you must appreciate what the family went thru. A mother's fear for her child as he has these terrible nightmares, that are worse than any night terrors so common at his young age. A father's total disbelief and anger at even the suggestion that his son is somehow reliving past memories... But as we read of 2 year old James Leiningers unbelievable knowledge of people and places he had no connection to, there is also an amazing detective story. As the Leiningers begin a search into the lives of the WW II pilots and men who shared a common story on the Natoma Bay a USS aircraft carrier and at Iwo Jima, in order to prove or disprove what their young son was recounting, their research saved a part of history that may have been lost forever. Thru interviews, genealogy research, and a lot of phone calls Andrea & Bruce put a human face to what may have been characterized as just another episode in US history. This was a fascinating story! Well written and engaging. The WW II history written about was so interesting too! And I enjoyed watching the pieces all fall into place as the story unfolded.

Would you like to learn more about The Leiningers and their story? Here is a Link to their website. And you can learn more about the book and read an excerpt HERE.

AND Thanks to Kelly of Hachette Book Group I have 3 copies of Soul Survivor for a giveaway!! Thanks Kelly for sending me a copy to read too!

To Enter this giveaway...

*For one entry leave me a comment with your email address!

*For another entry, sign up to follow my blog and leave a comment to let me know you just became a follower. (if you're already a follower you will get an extra entry!)

*Blog or tweet about this giveaway and leave me the link.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only.(No PO boxes). The books will be shipped to the winners directly from the publisher. Contest ends 11:59pm EST on August 22nd. I will randomly pick the winners the next day and email them! (please check your email.. winner must reply to me within 3 days! Thanks!) Good Luck!

Kindle Korner

Hi Everyone! Just a quick reminder that today August 3rd between 11 am EST and Wed. Aug. 5th 10:59am EST you can download a FREE PDF copy of Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann... "It's 1974, and a man is dancing on a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center—risky business, but as Colum McCann reveals in Let the Great World Spin (Random House), so is simply living day to day."

It's a free download for Oprah.com members, but you can still register to join. And joining Oprah.com is free too! Here's the link to Oprah.com . Once you register you can download the book! Easy put on your Kindle DX ! You can also put it on your Kindle 2! No Kindle? Thats OK, you can still download the book and read it off your computer!

**Just a note here I tried to put the PDF on my Kindle DX and the book won't open past page 4! Have been trying to see if anyone else was having similar problems.... Anyone here having any problems opening the PDF?

Happy Reading...

Suzanne

The Sunday Salon with "Books with Buzz"

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

My reading week started out with a bit of a panic-NO INTERNET! Actually sporadic internet. I decided to try out my local Borders HotSpot (WiFi internet connection) and see how it worked. Actually it was pretty easy, and for $6.00 I could get online for an hour, or for about $8.00 I could buy a 24 hour pass and access away! Of course I'm sure that the management may have found it a bit odd that I was dressed in my pajamas and demanding to get my money's worth at midnight while sitting in the coffee shop for the past 12 hours! I opted to test it out with a hourly pass. After arriving with my laptop, having it already turned on, the first site I tried to connect to lead me to a T-Mobile popup that gave simple instructions on how to sign up for an account and log in to access the internet. Other options were available for other internet providers, but not knowing how to access my AT & T WiFi I just opted for the T-Mobile. I was good to go! During the week we determined that it was probably a faulty modem and after my DH went to buy a new modem and spent the morning hooking it up, we are now back to normal! But, at least we know that Borders is a good option just in case. Then yesterday morning in my email, Barnes & Noble made an announcement that they had FREE WiFi available at most of their stores. My local B&N was listed, but since last being there, there were only a few chairs to be had for sitting down.... I guess a low bookshelf may work out to put my laptop on.... Anyone ever use a HotSpot? I would love to know where you found one!

So,this week there has been an interesting mix of books coming my way. First I started reading our book club read, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and was immediately drawn in. A whirl of events puts Henry Lee facing the painful memories 40 years later of his youth and the internment camps that had separated him from his boyhood crush Keiko. Keiko was an american, but of Japanese heritage and was swept up in the ugly part of WWII, that suspected any person of Japanese heritage to be a possible saboteur. Life went on and Henry grew up, married and had a family, but never forgot Keiko. When the belongings of some of the Japanese families are found hidden in the basement of a long abandoned hotel that is going to be refurbished, memories flood Henry Lee's mind and we are taken back with him to a different era... Look for my review later in the next few weeks! From what I've read so far it is a winner!

Putting that book aside for a moment I started reading a book that Caitlin of Unbridled Books sent my way - In Hovering Flight by Joyce Hinnefeld. I want to call it a quietly beautiful book, because it is thought provoking and stirring. I started reading it and didn't stop reading it until I finished it. It begins with a daughter coming home to say goodbye to her mother dying of cancer. The mother, a famous bird artist and environmental activist, is surrounded by her best friends from college and her dear husband, Tom. In saying goodbye, we are whisked off to the beginning of Addie and Toms humble beginnings as student and college professor. We learn of a complicated life that draws everyone back to Addie in the end. And with the gentle remembrances Addie's daughter gains a better understanding of her mother and who she really was. With rich characters set in a beautiful surrounding of nature with purpose. Check out the full review this week!

Another fun book that came my way is Up For Renewal, What magazines taught me about love, sex, and starting over by Cathy Alter. Cathy is a writer whose life was out of control. She was in her 40's, with a failed marriage and a slew of poor decisions and inappropriate men behind her. She decided what she really wanted and the list looked like what every women's magazine on the rack promised- "Find the love you deserve", "Perfect meals", "Paint to the rescue"... That's when she decided that for the next year she would follow the advice she could find in these magazines without question. And this is the book about the how, why and what happened during that year! I'm looking forward to reading about how it all went! Do you think you can solve your problems with a magazine article? I also have a extra copy thanks to the publisher! That means giveaway! And since I'm going to be mailing it out myself to the lucky winner, that means I can send it as far away as I like! (Do I hear international giveaway?!)

One more book I'd like to mention with A lot of Buzz this week is When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead! A YA(young adult) novel, but being enjoyed by adults as well... 6th grader Miranda and her best friend Sal enjoy navigating the New York City neighborhoods they are familiar with. One day Sal gets into a fight and stops talking to Miranda, who is left to her own devices and begins to mysteriously get these notes delivered to her. The notes slowly begin to tell a story and a mystery, which Miranda must solve, she believes, in order to prevent a tragic death... It is now on my TBR pile!

One more thing of note this week for my Kindle friends! On Monday August 3rd between 11 am EST and Wed. Aug. 5th 10:59am EST you can download a FREE eBook copy of Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann... "It's 1974, and a man is dancing on a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center—risky business, but as Colum McCann reveals in Let the Great World Spin (Random House), so is simply living day to day." And the book is suppose to really depict the New York City of old remarkable well- all happening down below while the man is on the tightrope. You must belong to the Oprah bookclub to participate, but it's very easy to join and it's FREE. Here's the link for the download and to join : Oprah Book Club . Now it does not specifically say Kindle only eBook, but Oprah is a big fan of the Kindle, so I am assuming that the eBook will be able to be downloaded on the Kindle... **UPDATE: The download for this book is a PDF.

*P.S. All These Books are Kindle Ready! Click on the their titles!